An Advent Headline

 This sermon was delivered in 2019. I had no thoughts for this week, so went back to see what I had previously preached. The words hit me! So -with a few changes- here it is again.

Today’s headline:  John the hippy is in the desert smoking weed!  .....

 

I editorialized the story for the modern ear.  John the Baptist was not a hippy and was not smoking weed, however, the headline is directive as to what was going on in the desert.

John was preaching a message that was anti-establishment.

John’s vision of the future and the kingdom were very different from what was being spoken by the religious leaders of his day.

John was partaking in activity, that although not illegal, was off-putting to many, not understandable, and not acceptable in polite society; for goodness sake, his father Zechariah was a priest and along with wife Elizabeth were upstanding citizens.

John was out in the wilds not caring what people thought – or at least he didn’t let what other people thought, stop him from harshly proclaiming a baptism of repentance; to be followed by a life that bore fruit worthy of repentance.

John demanded of those who came to be baptized a sincere resolution to reform their life. Those who simply came to see, and gawk; to get a selfie with the passionate windswept John, or to capture a video or blip for the social media frenzy that would take place today ---with hashtags like: #crazyprophet #voicecriesinthewilderness #camelshair #locustsandwildhoney #youbroodofvipers --- John vehemently confronted this group called them names, accused them of false pretenses, more or less told them they would go to hell (but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire).

John, labelled eccentric and indignant, claimed to be a mere shadow of the baptizer to come- Jesus. Terrifying.

John was wild with the urgency for conversion, high with the urgency for people to prepare for the coming Christ, ferocious with an urgency to be awake for the end of time.

 

There is no headline that could sanitize John the Baptist and his work in the desert of Judea. There is no headline that could make John’s message palatable; repent for the reign of God is at hand. There is no headline that could twist the words into something comfortable.  The message is harsh, direct, and painful.

Look at the images of the text:

It is painful - to make roads straight – if you have been on highway 103 over the past year and witnessed the dynamiting of bedrock, the crushing of stone, the spreading of gravel to make the new highway, it has been hard, dirty, and time-consuming work.

It is painful- to wear camels hair – if you have ever worn something that is made of wool and it has made you itch, or it gets wet and smells like farm, you know.

It is painful – to be called names, you brood of vipers; to have one’s ego knocked down, you’re not so great, God can make children for Abraham out of these rocks;

It is painful – if you are a tree- to be cut down; or for some people to watch trees get cut down for no reason.

It is painful – to think of baptism with fire rather than water; to consider judgement and purification in the process.

It is painful – to think about death, our death, the death of loved ones; where do they go? Where do we go? Is it a metaphor or is there unquenchable fire?

 

John the hippy -I mean- Baptizer is in the desert proclaiming –Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near.

This is both frightening and exhilarating! Welcome to the tension of Advent.

 

The tension is evident throughout Advent scripture.  The prophet Isaiah began his words this morning with images of judgment, striking the ruthless, and slaying the wicked; in turn the poor and afflicted receive justice. Then Isaiah, in a very non-John-the-Baptist-way, created a beautiful piece of poetry, not to frighten us into repentance, but, to draw the hearer's heart into an exhilarated moment of believing the possibility of a peaceable kingdom. The wolf and lamb will lie together, the leopard and the goat side by side, the calf and lion grazing together with a child guiding them, lion and ox eating hay together, and children playing in the dens of snakes and not being hurt. This comfortable poem is an indirect way to weave into a human heart a truth not heard in the surrounding world.  The story is very serious, although couched in comfort, the poem describes earth-shattering change, an upheaval of the natural order; as John the Baptist’s story indicates this kind of change is painful. Isaiah describes a change in the very nature of the animals; none of the animals in the poem are acting in the way they were created to act in order to survive. They are not living by animal instinct. Fear, protection, preservation – have all dissipated, vanished. The subtle idea being planted is the hope, the possibility, that if animal nature can so drastically change, so too can human nature.  Imagine human beings dramatically changed, turning from a proclivity to live from our shadow side. Fear, self-protection, self-preservation ---dissipated; jealously, anger, coveting, vengeance, judgement, bullying, lust—vanished; gone.

Isaiah painted for us a picture of John the Baptists’ railings in the wilderness: repent for the reign of God has come near. When come in its fulness it is a complete change of nature. Frightening and exhilarating.

 

In the early 1800s there was a Quaker minister named Edward Hicks. He was captivated by the words of Isaiah 11. Over a lifetime he painted more than 62 works of this prophecy – called the Peaceable Kingdom.

His early work had delightful animals – lions, leopards, cows, ox, sheep, goats, snakes, with little children- all happy, content, serene, filled with hope. In the pictures there were often groupings of people sometimes Quaker siblings, numerous examples that included prominently placed people of the Lenape First Nation.

Edward was deliberate in the inclusion of the Lenape who illustrated his sense of reconciliation and the Quaker practice of the values of friendship and love which Christ came to teach humans.  This relationship reminder was to direct people to honour the 1681 treaty of perpetual friendship signed with Pennsylvania’s founder William Penn—a treaty that by Hicks’ time had been disregarded.

 

The Quakers of Goose Creek, (later Lincoln, Virginia) acted like John in the wilderness – anti-establishment, creating a different vision. Before the American Civil War, they publicly acted and spoke against slavery; official written documents included an acknowledgement of women friends being part of the collective voice; and took an anti-war stance and declared themselves conscientious objectors. They practiced passivism, showing kindness and courage.

Hicks returned again and again to the peaceable kingdom because it was an expression of the Quaker understanding of the Inner Light, which referred to an understanding that salvation could be attained by yielding one’s will to the Christ-with-in.  Isaiah expressed the idea in the breaking down of barriers so that all could work and live together in peace.  Unfortunately, Edward’s art caused trouble; it was a bit of a John the Baptist move on his part. Quakers were a Society of Friends who shied away from any sort of ornamentation in their meeting halls, and also in their homes. Edward was between a rock and a hard place, as it was the selling of ornamental work – pictures of the peaceable kingdom-that gave him the means to support his family of five children.

In the early years, Edward had hope that humankind would establish peace on earth, by exercising biblical principles; that others would join Quakers in a bringing near the kingdom of God.  As years went on, as Edward became more cynical about human beings' abilities, the animals in his renderings of the peaceable kingdom became tense, exhausted, sometimes showing teeth; and the last paintings have animals like leopards depicted fighting with each other. He was disappointed that God’s kindom would never be a reality on earth in its fullness --- in this loss of hope, he turned fervently towards Christ.

 

Advent 2 traditionally lights the candle of peace – Edward wrestled with the tension of the Advent season – the Peaceable kindom, Christ’s kindom now and not yet.  Isaiah offered a poem to inspire -the Peaceable Kindom, to draw humankind to the possibility that humankind can change; be different, live peace. John the Baptist with no holds bar, demanded -demands- repent for the kindom of God has come near; the reign of God is at hand. Frightened and exhilarated--- we go this week, to wrestle with the tension of what currently is, and what ... if we turn our will to the Christ-with-in... is promised possibility!